1 killed on last day of ARMM voters’ registration

ABS-CBN News

MANILA, Philippines – A former barangay chairman was shot dead near a registration center in Lanao del Sur on Wendesday, the last day of the general voters’ registration in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Today marks the end of the 10-day general registration of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), in an effort to cleanse off the region’s voters’ list believed to be fraught with registrants who are underaged, registered in multiple areas, or are already dead.

Comelec said it monitored incidents where minors were being forced to register as voters. It also received reports that some residents were being paid at least P500 to register in a different area.

However, Comelec Commissioner Elias Yusoph said the list will still be examined to weed out illegal registrants.

Yusoph said identifying multiple registrants is now easier since the process was automated.

“We will be having a post-verification for the registration in ARMM to discover double registrants through the automated fingerprint identification system,” Yusoph said.

“If we found out that [someone registered] two times, three times, then his registration will be annulled or cancelled,” he added.

Yusoph said anyone found guilty of registering in multiple areas are facing six years of imprisonment. – reports from Roxanne Arevalo and Ronnie Enderes, ABS-CBN News Iligan